Roma Tre University research unit is the project Leading Partner and is composed by:
Anna Lisa Tota (Principal Investigator) is Full Professor in Sociology of Culture and Communication at the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts where she teaches Art Sociology, Communication Sociology and Music Sociology. She has taught for many years as Gast Professor Sociology of Advertising at the Universität St. Gallen in Switzerland. She is Deputy-Rector of Roma Tre University, delegate for the coordination of Third Mission activities and President of the Foundation “Oscar, Bice e Cesare Castello” of the Roma Tre University. From 2014 to 2017 she coordinated the Section “Processes and Cultural Institutions” of the Italian Association of Sociology. In 2005 she was Founding Member of the Research Network “Sociology of culture” of the European Sociological Association and from 2009 to 2011 she was Chair of the same Research Network. In 2001 she was Founding Member of the Research Network “Sociology of the Arts” of the European Sociological Association and from 2001 to 2003 she was Chair of the same network. She has published on the following topics: art sociology, museum studies, memory studies, terrorism studies, gender studies, photography, music sociology, advertising, media studies, qualitative methodology. Among her more recent books: Eco-Thoughts. Conversations with a Polluted Mind, Routledge, 2025; Ecologia del pensiero. Conversazioni con una mente inquinata, Einaudi, 2023; Inquinamento visuale. Manifesto contro il razzismo e il sessismo delle immagini (with De Feo and Luchetti), Mondadori, 2023. Website: www.annalisatota.it
Antonietta De Feo is Associate Professor in Sociology of Culture and Communication at the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts, where she teaches Gender & Media, Sociology of Communication, Public Communication and Methodologies of Social Sciences. She has written extensively on social inequalities with particular focus on gender perspective. Among her more recent publications: Arting Education. Reinventing Citizens of the Future. Special Issue of the Journal “Scuola Democratica”, edited with Anna Lisa Tota (2022), Inquinamento visuale. Manifesto contro il razzismo e il sessismo delle immagini (with Anna Lisa Tota and Lia Luchetti), Mondadori, 2023.
Letteria G. Fassari (Sapienza, University of Rome – Department of Social and Economic Sciences) is Associate Professor of Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes. She teaches Sociology of Culture and Cultures for Sustainability. Her recent publications include: Affecting societies, affecting risk (and opportunities), in Sociologia Italiana, 19-2022; Placing performance into a distressed space: the case of San Berillo, in Bartmanski et al. (eds.), “Considering Space” (with G. Pompili), Routledge, 2024; Performing Muslimness. Proximity and Visibility in the Italian Space, in Llewellyn, Hawthorne, Sharma (eds.), “Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion, Gender and Sexuality”, Bloomsbury, 2024.
Lia Luchetti is Lecturer in General Sociology at the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts, where she teaches Sociology of Communication and Media, Sociology of Advertising and Sociology of Fashion. She works on memory studies, cultural heritage, fashion studies and advertising. Among her recent publications: Digitalising Commemoration: The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the remembrance of the terrorist attack in Piazza Fontana, Milan (December 12, 1969) (with A.L. Tota), Marcial Pons, 2024; Commemorare una strage. La memoria pubblica di Piazza Fontana, Angeli, 2022.
The University of Salento research unit is composed by:
Mariano Longo is a full professor in the disciplinary field of General Sociology (SPS/07) and teaches Qualitative Methodologies in the Sociology and Social Research program in the Department of Human and Social Sciences at the University of Salento. In recent years, he has undertaken monitoring and teaching visits at the universities of Trier, Madrid Complutense, the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam, Technische Hochschule Ohm in Nuremberg, the University of Salamanca, the University of Cádiz, and the Pablo de Olavide University in Seville. He is currently responsible for the local unit of the PRIN TRAMIGRART project “From places of violence to spaces of memory: the role of artistic practices in the inscription of forced migration as cultural trauma in the public discourse.” He is currently the Director of the Department of Human and Social Sciences at the University of Salento.
Marta Vignola Lawyer, Master degree in “Human rights and Humanitarian intervention”, PhD in “Sociology of Law”. Associate Professor of Criminology and Sociology of Law, Department of Human and Social Sciences – University of Salento. Visiting fellow at Department of European Union & Mediterranean Law (EMUI) – Complutense University of Madrid, and Visiting Researcher at the Germe (Group for research on Ethnic Relations, Migration & Equality) Université Libre Bruxelles. Her studies concern human rights, processes of democratization, collective memory and cultural identity.
Corrado Punzi is RTDb Researcher in Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes, a disciplinary field in which he obtained the National Scientific Qualification as Associate Professor. He is currently a member of the Center for Risk Studies, the International Visual Sociology Association and the Euro-Mediterranean University Institute of the Universidad Complutense of Madrid, where he was Visiting researcher in 2012. He has done visual sociology research on violence and democratization processes in Chile and Burundi and on the social consequences of industrial plans in Salento, winning with Wind of swabia (77 min.) the Best Jury Prize at the Hot Docs International Canadian Documentary Festival in Toronto.
Matteo Jacopo Zaterini holds a PhD in Human and Social Sciences, is a Research Fellow, and teaches Methods and Techniques of Social Services at the Department of Human and Social Sciences of the University of Salento. He has been a visiting researcher at the “Center For Digital Play” of the ITU in Copenhagen. Currently, he focuses on the role of social representations and narratives within new media.
The University of Milan research unit is composed by:
Monica Massari is Associate Professor at the University of Milan where she teaches Sociology of Memory, Global Societies and Rights, and Comparative Social Systems. Her research activities have mostly addressed issues related to the relationships between globalization and violence, new forms of racism and discrimination in Europe and Mediterranean migration. Currently her research focuses on migrants’ traumatic memories and resistance related to Mediterranean crossings, exploitation of migrants, especially women, in informal markets and participatory research methods, with a growing attention toward biographical methods, narrative and art-based approaches. She is currently the local PI of Horizon2020 project “ITHACA-Interconnecting Histories and Archives for Migrant Agency: Entangled Narratives Across Europe and the Mediterranean Region”, Scientific Coordinator of the Marie S. Curie Postdoctoral Global Fellowship “MEMODIAS-Memory Practices of the Afghan and Somali Diasporas in the USA and Italy” and local coordinator of PRIN2020 “MOBS-Mobilities, solidarities and imaginaries across the borders”.
Silvia Di Meo, anthropologist, obtained a PhD in Social Sciences at the University of Genoa in 2023. She focuses on borders, migration policies, migrant mobilities and mobilizations and women’s memory practices and resistance. Her research fields focus on the Mediterranean area and its borders. She works on the topic of border deaths in the Mediterranean and Maghreb with a focus on search and identification procedures as well as collective processes of truth and justice demands and memorialization. She works through the camera with a participatory approach aimed at documenting women’s position in spaces of rights claiming.